MIAMI: A majestic and all-but-indestructible 20th-century ocean liner that once ferried royal leaders, movie stars and even the "Mona Lisa" to the United States was sunk on Wednesday night to become the world's largest artificial reef.
Experts conducted a controlled flooded sink of the 990-foot (302-metre) SS United States, a veteran of more than 800 transatlantic crossings in the 1950s and 60s, sending it to its final resting place on the Gulf of Mexico's sandy floor, some 40 kilometres southwest of Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Florida's Okaloosa County, gambling that such a huge new reef would be a local tourism boom and attract dive and fishing enthusiasts, bought the long-decommissioned vessel from a conservancy group for $1 million in 2024.
While the ship will rest at a depth of 180 feet, its top decks will be just about 55 feet below the water's surface, reachable for beginner divers. Until now, the largest artificial reef was an aircraft carrier sunk 20 years ago off the coast of Pensacola, also in Florida. — AFP
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